


Heart\Beat

by pocketmouse



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Arc Reactor, Body Modification, Community: kink_bingo, F/M, Graphic Imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Pepper are codependent, defining each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart\Beat

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, I wouldn't call this dark enough to tag it as dark, but it's definitely a darker take on the characters than I'd normally write. I think I joked that this was Ultimates!Pepper.

She has that look in her eyes again.

Her hands are clenched into fists as they tremble. He keeps up the pretense of sleep, watches her reflection in the window through slitted eyes as she slips out of bed without touching him at all.

He thinks of high heels and glass ceilings and painted fingers curved around a semiautomatic, shards of glass falling like rain in the sweep of her arm, and doesn't follow her.

  


Her grandmother had a special blend of tea that she only ever made on nights when Pepper couldn't sleep. It took working as Tony Stark's personal assistant for her to realize it was really just chamomile with whiskey, made especially for little girls who wouldn't go to bed, and new grandmothers who'd never been very good with children.

Tonight she was skipping the tea.

This wasn't a little girl's bad dream, indistinct monsters under the bed, chasing after her, creaking floorboards and bad lighting.

_thump-THUMP-stutter —_

No, this was visceral and specific.

_Her hand slides through the fluid, slippery and warm — warmed by the body she's pressing her hand into, and she knows, it's not pus, or a byproduct fluid, it's blood easing the way for her hand, and there's no metal casing, just fragile tissue, muscle hugging her hand as she searches, pressing harder, up to her wrist, her elbow — thud-THUD-thud-THUD-THDDd_

_She squeezes until it stops._

Pepper throws the glass across the room. It's heavy crystal, so it doesn't break, but she still hides her face in her hands, knowing what's coming next.

"Miss Potts, is everything all right?" JARVIS asks quietly, the soul of tact and tower security.

"Sorry, JARVIS, it's just me," she says. Her hands are clean. She knows that, she can see that. But she can _feel_ — "Bad night."

"My apologies," he murmurs. "I'm afraid my usual answer of Playlist 'No, the other one' and initializing the fabrication droids isn't indicated here, but do let me know if there is any way I can be of service."

The corner of her lip quirks involuntarily. "Is that the extended insomnia playlist?" She stands. "Strip out anything at less than 120 BPM, and play it in the gym."

_Thump-THUD—_

She walks faster.

  


_"Let me see your hands."_

  


Her hands are sticky, dripping. Her heart is beating faster than Tony's as the monitors indicate it settling back to a normal rhythm. "Was that so hard?" he asks. "That was fun, right?" Fun? Her hands are trembling as she tries to twist it into place, but they're so slick — "Here, I got it, I got it. Here." He brushes her hands away, callous disregard covering the fact that he's giving her a moment. He inspects his own work. "Nice."

He's so detached, so relaxed, when she just put her _hand_ in his chest. "Are you okay?" Cardiac arrest, his voice rising and skipping, that strangled yelp —

"Yeah, I feel great." Like she's asking about the weather. "You okay?" He starts to laugh, and she realizes that she's leaning over his naked chest, gasping for breath, and she's walked into his office to find this exact situation too many times to count, but it's never been so intimate as this. The warmth in her eyes invites her to share the joke. She wants to. She wants to —

"Don't ever, ever, ever, _ever_ ask me to do anything like that ever again." She waits for the invitation, the joke. But instead he's serious.

"I don't have anyone but you."

She clenches her hands into fists to keep from reaching out again.

  


Pepper Potts is not a very physical person. He used to think it was a distancing mechanism, another way for her to draw the line between 'employer' and 'employee.' But even now she's not much for physical gestures, parceling them out in mysterious, random intervals. But it's not some sort of control mechanism, she'd never choose something so obvious to reward him with, or if she did, she'd let him figure out which behavior came with the treat, wouldn't she? No, if anything, it's a reward system for Pepper.

Her touches are clear, precise. Informed, even — she knows just where to touch when he's hurt, which bruises are too tender and which can be prodded for that hot sharp burn. She can press just right on that knot in the middle of his back to make it melt instantly away, and all it takes is a squeeze of her hand for him to drop what he's doing entirely. Even if she doesn't mean to, she's got him trained better than she ever did when she was his PA.

He drums his fingers across his chest, and watches her eyes lock onto his fingers.

She has that look in her eyes again.

  


Tony Stark has never been a cautious person. He lets people get too close, too fast. He can create a personality for a robot, but he can't ascribe a simple motivation to any person he interacts with on a daily basis. He can't make a pointed insult without looking it up first, which makes the direct hits he does occasionally score all the more painful. As is the fact that he is wretchedly easy to manipulate himself.

It shouldn't be even easier now that he's got the arc reactor.

She shouldn't _want_ to now that it's there.

The tension in their previous games, the little push-pull of 'who's in charge here' with the 'Ms. Potts' and the 'Mr. Stark' is nothing to what she feels now when she puts a hand over his chest. He won't even stop whatever he's doing — talking, welding, eating, sometimes all three at once — but he leans into it, dips forward until that brilliant light is cradled in her hand.

Every time. Like it's nothing.

She tests, once — just once — pressing harder, fingertips trailing at the seams, where she knows they lie, beneath the crisp white business shirt. He just leans harder, a deep breath expanding his rib cage, and he doesn't exhale until she steps away, chasing him out with threats of paperwork.

In her head there is the quiet click and hiss of a lock releasing, the door not to an empty cavern but to a hall of wonders. All for her, on an almost literal silver platter.

Behind that is the quiet fear that if she asked, he'd say _yes_.

  


He doesn't know if she's read them, because he's never told her, but she has access to all of the files on the armor. And the arc reactor.

Because somebody responsible has to, and he's not kidding himself, that's not him. And, in the land of not kidding himself, one of these days one of his less bright ideas is going to backfire on him painfully, probably terminally, and stick this time. And it might be — OK, _is_ — a dick move, but if he's going to go, he wants her name plastered all over the rights to these things, because he's not afraid of using her sentimentality to make sure no one perverts this technology, even if it means he spends the entirety of the afterlife as a doorstop in Pepper Potts' office.

It had better be a really _nice_ doorstop, is all.

  


The water from the showerhead spatters across the arc reactor, and she can't help staring at the patterns it makes.

"What?" Tony says. He squints at her, head tilted up to keep the foam out of his eyes.

"Nothing," she replies. "I just —" she makes a vague gesture at his chest, trying to come up with something that doesn't sound bloodthirsty. "Waterproofing."

"What, on this?" He taps the reactor. "Of course it is, up to 1000 PSI. A little shower's not gonna hurt it, see —" and just like that, like it's _nothing_ , click-hiss, he pops it open, right in front of her. She jumps back, hitting the wall of the shower. He frowns. "All right, fine."

She catches his hand as he locks it back into place, their fingers turning the last few degrees together. He doesn't move, letting her keep them there, lather running down his neck and over their fingers.

"I like that where it is, thanks."

He doesn't argue, just kisses her fingers and sets them back down on the reactor again, before reaching for her shampoo this time.

  


"Pepper. Hey, Pepper." He's up before her for once, and it's not because he hasn't been to bed. No, they both went to bed at a fairly reasonable for a superhero and a super-CEO type time, and then there was some fantastic sex, and here they are, him with his eyes open and her with hers shut.

That's not how that's supposed to go.

He floats a finger across her cheek, following the line of her cheekbone. She's got gorgeous cheekbones. Hell, she's got gorgeous everything.

"Pepper." She hums slightly and tips her head away. "Pepper, am I doing this right? This relationship thing? Because I think so, there's been very little scandal or hush money sent to the Enquirer, and that can only be good, right? Or is that why most relationships dissolve into shouting? Because I could do that, you know. I have these new teammates, there's probably room for a couple scandalous photos in there." He waits a beat. She's still asleep.

"So that's a no, then? Right, I can live with that. I'm surprisingly okay with that, I'm surprising myself here." He taps her chest. "It's like you've made me grow a heart or something."

  


"Tony, can I —"

"Yeah. Yeah, come here."


End file.
